At one of the hotels I worked at we faced the challenge of being consistent in how we assigned room upgrades to our guests, and were not in line with the directions of our loyalty program. We had over 70 percent of return guests and were giving upgrades left and right, not just to the next room category, but to junior suites and up as well. This not only reduced the feeling of being special and recognized when receiving upgrades, it also caused our guests to feel entitled to the upgrade and to complain whenever we could not accommodate them. Even more we were not able to up-sell any of our guests that were actually willing to pay for a nicer room. We had a change of GM’s and our new leader made it very clear from the beginning that we would honor the guidelines of our loyalty program in assigning upgrades, and even assigning very frequent guests to the rooms booked, and that we as managers would be expected to be consistent with this. As expected it was a bumpy start and we had to deal with plenty of unhappy guests for a couple of months. Many of them asked to speak to the Hotel Manager and General Manager to express their unhappiness and to complain about the individual providing the service and denying the upgrade. To our surprise the GM stayed consistent with the message given by his managers and front line staff, and supported us 100 percent. After a couple of months the guest complaints disappeared, guests started appreciating upgrades again, were giving us higher scores on guest satisfaction surveys and started to book suites at a higher rather than always hoping for an upgrade.

But most importantly we felt supported on our mission, we felt no matter what would come our way, that we would have a brick wall behind us!

Image courtesy of Kibsri at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Support is everything! You can set the highest expectations, hold your people accountable to it and drive outstanding results, as long as you provide the tools and resources necessary and support your team in executing your expectations. Nothing is more disappointing than a leader without integrity who doesn’t walk the talk.

What’s important to remember about support:

• If your team follows your directions and aims to meet your expectations, you need to be fully supportive and not change your mind or disappear when the push back comes your way
• Being supportive in challenging situations is never easy, but that’s when it matters most to your team
• While your team loves to see you supporting them, most of your support takes place behind the scenes without anyone ever knowing about it, so being supportive is not about trying to get credit for it
• Support is about making your team succeed, and helping your employees grow and develop, and nothing is more rewarding

What’s your take on the importance of having a supportive leader, and can you share any stories of your own?